ROMANCE AND REALITY.
Lottie was entirely unconscious of the intimation that had been made to
her father, and of the excitement which had risen among her neighbours
about Mr. Ridsdale. It did not occur to her that anyone but herself knew
anything about him. The delighted curiosity of the O’Shaughnessys and
the anxious concern of Captain Temple were equally unknown to her. Her
mind was still moved by an echo of the sentiment of their last
meeting--a thrill of emotion half from the music, half from the
awakening feelings, the curiosity, the commotion of her developing
nature. Of all Law’s communications which had excited himself so
powerfully, and which had also to some extent excited her, she
remembered little in comparison. The large dim room at the Deanery, the
faint night air breathing about, blowing the flames of the candles, the
moths that circled about the lights and did themselves to death against
every flame, seemed to glimmer before her eyes continually--everything
else, even the danger of her father’s marriage, the danger of Law’s
imprudence, fell into the background and became distant; everything
receded before the perpetual attraction of this shadowy scene.
Mr. Ridsdale made a second call upon her in the morning after service,
just at the moment when Captain Temple and Major O’Shaughnessy were
talking to her father. This time he brought no note, and had no excuse
ready to explain his visit. “I came to say good-by,” he said, holding
out his hand and looking rather wistfully into her face. Lottie offered
him her hand demurely. She scarcely met his eyes. Her heart began to
beat as soon as she heard his voice asking for her at the door. It
brought back all the terrors of the previous night. She did not however
ask him to sit down, but stood faltering opposite to him, embarrassed,
not knowing what to do.
“You would not accept my escort last night,” he said; “I was dreadfully
disappointed when I came out and found you gone. I had been waiting, not
wishing to hurry you. I hope you did not think I was a laggard?”
“Oh no, it was my fault,” said Lottie, not raising her eyes. “There was
no need for anyone to come with me. It is but two steps, and at that
hour there is no one about. There was no need--for any escort.”
“May I sit down for a few minutes, Miss Despard? My train is not till
one o’clock.”
Lottie blushed crimson at this implied reproach. It might be right to be
shy of him, but not to be rude to him. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” she
said, pointing to a chair.
“You took us all by surprise last night,” he said, carefully placing
hers for her. “I think it was a revelation to everybody. We hear that
music in the Abbey, and we suppose we understand it; till someone like
you suddenly interprets it to us, and we wake up and feel that we never
heard it before.”
“I never knew what it was--to sing anything like that before,” said
Lottie. It disturbed her even to think about it; “and it had all been so
different--so----”
“Commonplace? from the ridiculous to the sublime; from poor dear Aunt
Caroline on her sofa to Handel fluting among the angels. It _was_ a step
indeed.”
“I did not mean that. It was myself I was thinking of--I had been so
full of silly fancies of my own.”
“But all at once the inspiration came? I should like to be capable of
anything like that; but I am not. I can only listen, and worship,” said
Rollo. There was fervour in his voice--a real something which was not
mere fanaticism about music. And the two young people sat for a few
moments in silence, a most dangerous thing to do, looking at each
other--nay, not looking at each other--for Lottie did not feel either
able or disposed to raise her eyes. She was the first to speak, in order
to break the silence, which alarmed her, though she did not know why.
“It is wonderful how the Signor plays. I never understood it in the
Abbey. He seems to place you up somewhere above yourself--and make your
voice come independent of you.”
“Never in his life, I am sure, did he have such a beautiful compliment
paid to him,” said Rollo; “but, Miss Despard, you do him too much
credit. You permitted even me to accompany you--and sang just as
divinely----”
“Oh no,” said Lottie. Then she blushed and recollected herself. “You
play very well, Mr. Ridsdale; but we could not compare those trumpery
songs with----”
“Trumpery songs! only Mozart and Bellini, and a few more,” he cried,
with a gasp. “Ah, I know what you mean; you meant the ‘Marta’ song,
which made your good friend, that good woman, cry----”
“I like the ‘Last Rose of Summer’ very much. I have always liked it. I
used to hear an old fiddler play it in the street when I was a child,
when I was lying in the dark, trying to go to sleep. It was like a
friend keeping me company; but a friend that had a breaking heart, that
cried and took all my thoughts off myself--I shall never forget it,”
said Lottie, the tears coming to her eyes at the recollection. “I like
it better than all the rest.”
“Miss Despard, do not drive me to despair. Not better than ‘Casta Diva,’
or Margaret’s song, or----”
“You forget I don’t know where they come, nor the meaning of them,” said
Lottie, calmly. “I never heard an opera. I think these things are
beautiful, but they only sing to my ear, they don’t come in to _me_.”
Rollo shook his head. He was half touched, half shocked. It was her
ignorance; but then a woman destined for a prima donna, a woman with
musical genius, _ought_ to know the best by intuition, he thought. All
the same, he was more interested than if she had raved as the
commonplace, half educated amateur raves. “But Handel does,” he said.
“Ah!” Lottie cried, her face lighting up. But she added, after a moment,
“I am too ignorant to be worth talking to; you will be disgusted. I
never thought much about Handel. It was not Handel, it was _that_.” A
flush of colour came over her face with the recollection. She was too
uninstructed (notwithstanding the neighbourhood of the Abbey) to have
fully woke up to Handel or anyone. “I suppose I have heard it and did
not pay much attention to it,” she said; “it was singing it. One does
not understand at first--till suddenly one hears one’s self, and you
say, ‘What is this that is speaking; what is this? it cannot be _me_!’”
“I think I understand--a little,” said Rollo doubtfully; “though it is
simply _you_ that makes a something quite familiar, a piece of music we
have all heard a hundred times, become a new revelation to us all in a
moment. I am going away, Miss Despard, and it may be some time before I
return. Would you do me such a great favour--which I have no right to
ask--as to sing me something now before I go?”
But Lottie would not sing. She said, “Oh no, no,” with a half terror
which he did not understand, and which she did not understand herself.
The tone was one which forbade the repetition of the request. He begged
her pardon anxiously, and there was a little languid conversation about
other subjects, and then he rose. He put out his hand again, looking
into her eyes, which she raised shyly, almost for the first time. Rollo
had a way of looking into the eyes of women to whom he wished to make
himself agreeable. It is sometimes very impertinent, and always daring,
but, especially when the woman’s imagination is on the side of the
gazer, it is very efficacious. Lottie was entirely inexperienced, and
she trembled under this look, but felt it penetrate to her very heart.
“Till we meet again,” he said, with a smile, holding her hand for that
necessary moment while he said his good-by. “It will not be very long;
and I hope that you will be kind to me, Miss Despard, and let me hear
you----”
“Good-by,” said Lottie. She could not bear it any longer. She blamed
herself afterwards for being rude, as she sat down and went over the
incident again and again. She seemed to herself to have dismissed him
quite rudely, pulling her hand away, cutting short what he was saying.
But Rollo, for his part, did not feel that it was rude. He went down the
narrow stairs with his heart beating a little quicker than usual, and a
sense that here was something quite fresh and novel, something not like
the little flirtations with which he was so familiar, and which amused
him a great deal in general. This he had just touched, floated over with
his usual easy sentiment, was something quite out of the common. It
startled him with the throb in it. He went away quite thoughtful, his
heart in a most unusual commotion, and forgot until he was miles away
from St. Michael’s that Lottie Despard was to be the English prima
donna, who was to make his fortune, if properly managed. “Ah, to be
sure, that was it!” he said to himself suddenly in the railway carriage,
as he was going to town. He really had forgotten what it was that took
him to town at this unsuitable moment of the year.
The rest of the morning glided dreamily away after an incident like
this; and it was not till late in the afternoon that Lottie suddenly
awoke to the necessity of making an effort, and shaking off the empire
of dreams: and this was how she became convinced of the necessity for
doing so. She had been sitting, as on the former occasion, with a basket
of mending by her when Rollo came in. She had all the clothes of the
household to keep in order, and naturally they were not done in one
day. After Mr. Ridsdale was gone, she took up her work languidly,
keeping it on her knee while she went over all that had happened, again
and again, as has been recorded. When, at last startled by a sound
outside, she began to work in earnest, then and there a revelation of a
character totally distinct from that made by Handel burst upon her. It
was not a revelation of the same kind, but it was very startling. Lottie
found--_that she had not yet finished the hole in the sock which she had
begun to mend before Mr. Ridsdale’s first visit_! She was still in the
middle of that one hole. She remembered exactly where she stuck her
needle, in the middle of a woolly hillock, as she heard him coming
upstairs; and there it was still, in precisely the same place. This
discovery made her heart jump almost as much as Mr. Ridsdale’s visit had
done. What an evidence of wicked idling, of the most foolish dreaming
and unprofitable thought was in it! Lottie blushed, though she was
alone, to the roots of her hair, and seizing the sock with an
impassioned glow of energy, never took breath till the stern evidence of
that hole was done away with. And then she could not give herself any
rest. She felt her dreams floating about her with folded pinions, ready
to descend upon her and envelope her in their shadow if she gave them
the chance; but she was determined that she would not give them the
chance. As soon as she had finished the pair of socks, and folded them
carefully up, she went to look for Law to suggest that they should go
immediately to Mr. Ashford. Law had only just come in from a furtive
expedition out of doors, and had scarcely time to spread his books open
before him when she entered his room. But he would not go to Mr.
Ashford. It was time enough for that, and he meant in the meantime to
“work up” by himself, he declared. Lottie became more energetic than
ever in the revulsion of feeling, and determination not to yield further
to any vanity. She pleaded with him, stormed at him, but in vain. “At
the worst I can always ’list,” he said, half in dogged resistance to
her, half in boyish mischief to vex her. But he would not yield to her
desire to consult Mr. Ashford, though he had assented at first. He did
not refuse to go “some time,” but nothing that she could say would
induce him to go now. This brought in again all the contradictions and
cares of her life to make her heart sore when she turned back out of the
enchanted land in which for a little while she had been delivered from
these cares. They all came back upon her open-mouthed, like wild beasts,
she thought. Law resisting everything that was good for him, and her
father----. But Lottie could not realise the change that threatened to
come upon her through her father. It seemed like the suggestion of a
dream. Law must be deceived, it must be all a delusion, it was not
possible, it was not credible. The Captain came in early that night,
and he came upstairs into the little drawing-room, to which he had no
habit of coming. He told his daughter in a stately way that he heard her
singing had given great satisfaction at the Deanery. “More than one
person has mentioned it to me,” he said; “that is of course a
satisfaction. And--who is the gentleman you have been having here so
much?”
“There has been no one here very much,” said Lottie; then she blushed in
spite of herself, though she did not suppose that was what he alluded
to. “You do not mean Mr. Ridsdale?” she said.
“How many visitors have you got?” he said, in high good humour. “Perhaps
it is Mr. Ridsdale--Lady Caroline’s nephew? Ah, I like the family. It
was he you sang to? Well, no harm; you’ve got a very pretty voice--and
so had your mother before you,” the Captain added, with a carefully
prepared sigh.
“It was only once,” said Lottie, confused. “Mrs. O’Shaughnessy was here;
it was after we had been singing at the Deanery; it was----”
“My child,” said the Captain, “I am not finding fault. No harm in
putting your best foot foremost. I wish you’d do it a little more. At
your age you ought to be thinking about getting married. And, to tell
the truth, it would be a great convenience to me, and suit my plans
beautifully, if you would get married. You mustn’t stand
shilly-shallying; let him come to the point: or, if he won’t, my dear,
refer him to me.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” cried Lottie. Fortunately for her, he had
thought her a child up to the time of their migration to St. Michael’s,
and she had been subjected to very little advice of this description.
But, though she gazed at him with wondering eyes, she knew very well by
the instinct of horror and repulsion in her mind what he meant. It gave
her a shock of pain and shame which ran like electricity to her very
finger points. “I think you must be making a mistake,” she said. “I
scarcely know Mr. Ridsdale at all. He has called here twice--on
business--for Lady Caroline--and now he has gone away.”
“Gone away!” the Captain said, his face lengthening with disappointment
and dismay; “gone away! then you’re a fool--a greater fool than I
thought you. What’s to become of you, do you ever ask yourself? Good
lord, what a chance to throw away! One of the Courtland family--a fellow
with a turn for music--that you could have turned round your little
finger! And to let him go away! By George,” said the Captain, making a
stride towards her, and clenching his fist in the energy of his
disapproval, “I don’t believe you’re any child of mine. Clever--you
think you’re clever? and so did your mother, poor woman! but you’re an
idiot, that is what you are--an idiot! to let such a chance slip
through your fingers. Good lord! to think such a fool should be a child
of mine!”
Lottie stood her ground firmly. She was not afraid of the clenched fist,
nor even of the angry voice and eyes, which were more genuine. If there
was a slight tremor in her, it was of her own excited nerves. She made
no reply; if she had spoken, what could she have done but express her
own passionate loathing for his advice, and for his disapproval, and
perhaps even for himself? for she had not been brought up to reverence
the faulty father, whose evil qualities her mother had discussed in
Lottie’s presence as long as she could remember. There had not been any
illusion in his children’s eyes after their babyhood, in respect to
Captain Despard, and perhaps in the present emergency this was well. She
stood and met his fury, pale, but more disdainful than desperate. It was
no more than she would have expected of him had she ever thought of the
emergency at all.
Law had heard the sound of the battle from afar; he heard his father’s
voice raised, and the sound of the stroke upon the table with which he
had emphasised one of his sentences. It was a god-send to the
unenthusiastic student to be disturbed by anything, and he came in
sauntering with his hands in his pockets, partly with the intention of
taking Lottie’s part, partly for the sake of “the fun,” whatever it
might be. “What’s the row?” he asked. He had slippers on, and shuffled
along heavily, and his coat was very old and smelt of tobacco, though
that was a luxury in which Law could indulge but sparingly. He had his
hands in his pockets, and his hair was well rubbed in all directions by
the efforts he had made over his unbeloved books. Thus it was but a
slovenly angel that came to Lottie’s aid. He stopped the yawn which his
“reading” had brought on, and looked at the belligerents with some hope
of amusement. “I say, don’t bully Lottie,” he exclaimed, but not with
any fervour. He would not have allowed anyone to lay a finger upon her,
but a little bullying, such as she administered to him daily, that
perhaps would do Lottie no harm. However, he was there in her defence if
things should come to any extremity. She was of his faction, and he of
hers; but yet he thought a little bullying of the kind she gave so
liberally might do Lottie no harm.
“Go away, Law; it is no matter; it is nothing. Papa was only
communicating some of his ideas--forcibly,” said Lottie, with a smile of
defiance; but as there was always a fear in her mind lest these two
should get into collision, she added hastily, “Law, I don’t want you--go
away.”
“He can stay,” said the Captain. “I have something to say to you both.
Look here. I thought in the first place that she had hit off something
for herself,” he said, turning half round to his son. “I thought she had
caught that fellow, that Ridsdale; from what I had heard, I thought
that was certain--that there would be no difficulty on that side.”
The Captain had left his original ground. Instead of reproaching Lottie,
in which he was strong, he was in the act of disclosing his own
intentions, and this was much less certain ground. He looked at Law, and
he wavered. Big lout! he knew a great deal too much already. Captain
Despard looked at Law as at a possible rival, a being who had been
thrust into his way. The workroom had no secrets from Law.
“I think the governor’s right there,” said Law confidentially; “he’s a
big fish, but he’s all right if you give him time.”
A gleam of sudden fury blazed over Lottie’s face. She, too, clenched her
hands passionately. She stamped her foot upon the floor. “How dare you?”
she said, “how dare you insult me in my own home, you two men? Oh, yes,
I know who you are--my father and my brother, my father and my brother!
the two who ought to protect a girl and take care of her! Oh! is it not
enough to make one hate, and loathe and despise--!” said Lottie, dashing
her white clenched hand into the air. Tears that seemed to burn her came
rushing from her eyes. She looked at them with wild indignation and
rage, in which there was still a certain appeal. How could they, how
could they shame a girl so? They looked at her for a moment in this
rage, which was so impotent and so pitiful, and then they gave a
simultaneous laugh. When an exhibition of passionate feeling does not
overawe, it amuses. It is so ludicrous to see a creature crying out,
weeping, suffering for some trifle which would not in the least affect
ourselves. Lottie was struck dumb by this laugh. She gave a startled
look up at them through those hot seas of salt scalding tears that were
in her eyes.
“What a fool you are making of yourself!” said the Captain. “Women are
the greatest fools there are on this earth, always with some high-flown
rubbish or other in their stupid heads. Your own home! and who made it
your home, I should like to know? I don’t say you hadn’t a right to
shelter when you were a little thing; but that’s long out of the
question. A girl of twenty ought to be thinking about getting herself a
real home of her own. How are you going to do it? that’s the question.
You are not going to stay here to be a burden upon me all your life; and
what do you mean to do?”
“I will go to-morrow!” cried Lottie, wildly; “I would go to-night if it
were not dark. I will go--and free you of the burden!” Here she stopped;
all the angry colour went out of her face. She looked at them with great
wide eyes, appalled; and clasped her hands together with a lamentable
cry. “Oh! but I never thought of it before, I never thought of it!” she
cried; “where am I to go?”
Law’s heart smote him; he drew a step nearer to her. To agree with his
father (however much in his heart he agreed with his father) was
abandoning his sister--and his own side. “He doesn’t mean it,” he said
soothingly in an undertone; “he only wants to bully you, Lottie. Never
mind him, we’ll talk it over after,” and he put his big hand upon her
shoulder to console her. Lottie turned upon him, half furious, half
appealing. She could not see him till two big tears fell out of her
eyes, and cleared her sight a little. She clutched at the hand upon her
shoulder in her distraction and despair.
“Come with me, Law. Two of us together, we can go anywhere; two can go
anywhere. Oh! how can you tell me never to mind? Do you hear me?” she
cried, seizing his arm with both her hands, half shaking him, half
clinging to him; “say you will come with me, Law!”
“Stop this stuff!” said the Captain. “I am not telling you to go; I am
telling you what is your plain duty, the only thing a woman is fit for.
Besides, this young fellow would be of great use to me; it’s your duty
to get hold of him for the good of the family. He might say a good word
for me at the Horse Guards; he might get Law something. I never expected
you would have such a chance. Do you think I want you to go away just
when there’s a chance that you might be of some use? Am I a fool, do
you think? You’ll stay where you are, Lottie Despard! you’ll not go
disgracing your family, governessing, or anything of that sort.”
“Ah!” said Law suddenly, “she’ll wish she had listened to the Signor
now.”
“To the Signor? what of the Signor? is he after her too?” cried the
Captain eagerly. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; and though
the Signor had no interest with the Horse Guards, he had money, and
might be of use in many ways. Captain Despard’s eyes lighted up. “Whew!”
he whistled. “Lottie! so, my child, you’ve got two strings to your bow?”
Lottie turned upon her brother, whose arm she had been holding with both
her hands. She pushed him, flung him from her with an energy of which
she had not appeared capable, and throwing her head high, looked her
father in the face and walked out of the room. Law, confounded by the
force with which she threw him from her, caught at her angrily as she
passed; but she pulled her dress from his hand, and walked past him with
a contempt that stung him--callous as he was. As for the Captain, he
made no effort to detain her, partly because of his surprise, partly
that he was anxious to have more information about (as he supposed) this
second suitor. She went straight to her own room, while they stood
listening till she had shut the door upon herself and her passion. Then
the Captain ventured to laugh again, but low, not to be heard; for the
look of any creature driven to bay is alarming, and Lottie’s sudden
withdrawal was a relief.
“Whoever gets her will catch a Tartar! eh, Law?” he said. “But now that
she’s gone, let’s hear all about the Signor.”
There was no light in Lottie’s room; nothing but the faint starlight
outside, and as much of the familiar glimmer of the few feeble lamps in
the Dean’s Walk as could get in through her small window. How is it that
so small a bit of space, such four straight walls, should hold in such a
throbbing, palpitating, agitated being, with projects wide enough and
fury hot enough to burst them like a child’s toy? It was in her to have
torn her hair or anything that came in the way of her fevered hands; to
have filled the air with cries; to have filled the whole world with her
protest against the intolerable shame and wretchedness which they were
trying to force upon her thoughts! But she only threw herself on her bed
in the dark and silence, letting no sound or movement betray her. She
was not prostrated as by unkindness, or stung by reproach; but wounded,
shamed, desecrated--the very sanctity of her dreams turned into a horror
to her. And Law gone against her--Law gone over to the other side!